Reimagining Vacant Assets with a Land Use Economy System: Design to deliver diverse benefits

Abstract

The City of Baltimore has more than 16,000 vacant structures awaiting demolition, and with more than 200 properties coming down each year, a surplus of vacant land it does not have the resources to maintain. These unmaintained vacant parcels erode already distressed neighborhoods, decreasing safety and serving as breeding grounds for unwanted pests. Current research shows that well designed and maintained projects on vacant properties can be community amenities, increasing adjacent property values, treating stormwater, lowering crime rates, reducing dangerous summer temperatures, and improving mental and physical health. There are vacant land restoration strategies in post-industrial cities across the United States that propose interventions ranging from installing raingardens to creating urban forests. What many of these strategies lack, however, is an intentional approach to designing a system for vacant land restoration that delivers key outcomes and creates conditions to attract the resources needed for implementation and maintenance. This lack often leaves cities struggling to find capital to address the glut of vacancies across the landscape.

The specific objective of this project was to improve the lives of the people by strategically restoring vacant parcels through a systems-based approach. By employing a transdisciplinary research process rooted in community power sharing, this research uncovers key components to a vacant land restoration economy system in Baltimore. An assessment of groups interested in vacant land restoration offers a replicable methodology for uncovering desired outcomes from potential funders such as cleaner water, safer neighborhoods and jobs for underemployed people. The researchers then conducted a literature review to develop design strategies for delivering identified outcomes. These design guidelines were then applied to a vacant property in the Johnston Square neighborhood of Baltimore. A community engagement process co-designed with neighborhood leaders identified community desired outcomes and features for a vacant property then the research created designs in an iterative process with community members. Finally, the potential outcomes of that design were modeled using the National Green Values Calculator and the Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs, two models designed to look at social, economic, and environmental impacts of green infrastructure.

This project advances the field of landscape architecture by offering a model by which planning and design can position vacant parcels to deliver critical benefits that create the conditions for public and private reinvestment. The project positions planning and design as tools to translate best available science in landscape processes into functional elements of places that support communities while delivering services and outcomes. This project has the potential to improve the quality of life for residents of Baltimore by delivering outcomes such as cleaner water, cooler temperatures, safer neighborhoods and jobs. It can also serve as a template for cities that are struggling with similar vacancy issues.